Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by magicalhippo 442 days ago
They're detecting patterns predominantly bots use. The fact that some humans also use them doesn't change that.

Back when I was playing Call of Duty 4, I got routinely accused of cheating because some people didn't think it was possible to click the mouse button as fast as I did.

To them it looked like I had some auto-trigger bot or Xbox controller.

I did in fact just have a good mouse and a quick finger.
1 comments
animuchan 442 days ago
What's different is the badness of the outcome: if children mislabel you as a cheater in CoD, you may get kicked from the server.

If CloudFlare mislabels you as a bot, however, you may be unable to access medical services, or your bank account, or unable to check in for a flight, stuff like that. Actual important things.

So yes, I think it's not unreasonable to expect more from CF. The fact that some humans are routinely mischaracterized as bots should be a blocker level issue.

link
magicalhippo 442 days ago
Does it suck? Yes, absolutely. Should CF continuously work to reduce false positives? Yes, absolutely.

I've never failed the CF bot test so don't know how that feels. Though I have managed to get to level 8 or 9 on Google's ReCaptcha in recent times, and actually given up a couple of times.

Though my point was just it's gonna boil down to a duck test, so if you walk like a duck and quack like a duck, CF might just think you're a duck.

link